CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

Happy EASTER! Course staff have been busy preparing the course for this weekends Easter Medley, difficult task this week due to the Good Friday public holiday effectively having a 4 day week to prepare the course. I think we achieved what we set out to and the course is in great shape heading into the weekend. The greens maybe a little slower than previous major events but you have to keep in mind the greens were only renovated 3 weeks ago, looking at them you wouldn't know it has only been 3 weeks, I m very pleased with the way the greens have come back, we knew it was always going to be a race against time to have them remotely close to condition for this weekend, while another week would have been nice, I think we won the race in the end. The greens are only 1/2mm off our usual major event height of cut being cut at 3mm, a fantastic response only 3 weeks out from renovations, we are only single cutting and this will contribute to slightly slower greens than normal major e

Under instruction from the Course Director the fairway definitions will be changing slightly, in most cases the fairway will now stop short of the green, some fairways will be re shaped and others narrowed to get a definitive edge between the fairway area and rough. In some cases the fairway definition is difficult to obtain due to a number of reasons, the main being, the rough area not receiving adequate irrigation, shade and  tree roots, by narrowing some of the generous fairways we hope to have a better fairway definition. The other reason for this work is to make subtle changes to increase the challenging nature of the course without adding labour intensive bunkers etc. You will notice blue lines around the new fairway cut area, this is to assist the fairway mower operator hit the line, until the distinction has grown in. Some scalping of areas will occur where the cut has been taken outside the existing line, these areas Will recover quickly with a little assistance from the

I apologise for limited blog updates lately, as many know my wife has recently had back surgery and during her time in hospital when not staying in Perth, I was making the 4 hour round trip, as you can imagine, organising course work, family at home and taking care of the wife has kept me busy and will do so for some time yet so bare with me until some form of normality returns. Over the past few weeks we have successfully held the Capel Classic with the increased maintenance and grooming that entails, and of course our Greens renovations this past weekend. Renovations went very well, all greens solid tinned (this was due to the close proximity of the Easter event and needing to get the greens back quicker than we would if pulling the cores out). Fertilised and all the goodies applied, prior to this, the greens were verti cut and the couch areas heavily scarified and also undertook crab grass, Saltene and Couch chemical control. The race will now be on to get the greens back to n